Let us be free, the rest matters not - José de San Martín
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General José de San Martín, left, General Bernardo O’Higgins, right, crossing the Andes during the
liberation of South America – Author, Julio Villa y Prades, source, bernardoohiggins.cl-chacabuco,
Museo Histórico y Militar de Chile, Santiago de Chile, public domain, Wikimedia
Let us be free, the rest matters not.
— José de San Martín
467
José de San Martín's proclamation of the independence of Peru, Lima, 28 July 1821 – Author, Juan Lepiani,
National Museum of Archaeology, Anthropology, and History of Peru, public domain, Wikimedia
El Perú es desde este momento libre e independiente por la voluntad general
de los pueblos y por la justicia de su causa que Dios defiende.
¡Viva la patria! ¡Viva la libertad! ¡Viva la independencia!
— José de San Martín
468
Simón Bolívar, El Libertador – Author, Rita Matilde del la Penuela, art
collection of the Central Bank of Venezuela, public domain, Wikimedia
The United States appear to be destined by Providence to plague
America with misery in the name of liberty.
— Simón Bolívar
Simón Bolívar, El Libertador – Author, Rita Matilde del la Penuela, Art collection of the Central Bank of Venezuela, public
domain, Wikimedia. Called “El Libertador”, Simón Bolívar was a Venezuelan military and political leader who along with
José de San Martín, Bernardo O’Higgins, and others led the struggle for South American independence from the Spanish
Empire. Educated in Spain and France and influenced by the ideas of the Enlightenment like the leaders of the U.S.
revolution, Bolívar was motivated to overthrow Spanish colonialism. The struggle with France in the Peninsular War had
destroyed the economies of Portugal and Spain, bringing political instability and weakening Spain’s military control over its
colonies. Through a series of battles, including the Battle of Boyaca in 1819 after Bolívar’s great military feat of crossing the
snowcapped Andes mountains, Bolívar succeeded in leading Venezuela, Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, and Panama to
independence, ultimately founding Gran Colombia, the first union of independent nations in Latin America, of which he
was elected president. While he was able to negotiate a series of treaties, he could not control the internal dissension and
regional uprisings in the vast dominion of Gran Colombia, his dream disintegrating in 1830 when he stepped down as
president, delivering his final address to the nation. For the balance of the 19th and 20th century, Latin America was ripped
by civil wars and caudillismo, the dictatorships of charismatic military leaders, making it impossible for democracy to
thrive, a process that the United States would become increasingly implicated, which the following chapter will trace.
469
10
The freedom of the New World is the hope of the Universe.
— Simón Bolívar
When I returned from my anthropology class, Gisella gave me a note from the message box.
Alicia has a fever. I’m staying with her. I’ll let you know tomorrow if we can meet by the lake. Tomás.
I was at once disappointed and relieved. I was euphoric that Tomás was fascinated by me, and
yet, after three years, dreams of Giovanni still haunt me at night. Was I leading Tomás on because of my
loneliness? From day to day, I swing from elation to doubt. I’m tormented by Gio’s absence.
Early this morning, I awakened thinking of Giovanni. I hadn’t written to him all this year.
Receiving no letter in three years was inexplicable. That’s not like Gio. Even if he didn’t want to be with
me — even if he is still in love with Yvonne, Gio would’ve told me. I’m sure of that. Maybe he’s in love
with someone else. His silence doesn’t make sense. I have to know. Only then can I be free. I went to my
desk.
Dear Gio, it has been three years. Though I’ve written many times, I have never received one letter.
I’ve mailed letters to Birdland on Broadway. Not one letter has been returned. If we’re finished, why
wouldn’t you have the guts to tell me? Why have you failed me? I am tortured by your silence. This is not the
Gio I loved.
I’ve met someone who inspires me. I understand your pain over losing Yvonne. I share that pain as
deeply as you. But I am still hung up by our past. I am asking you to give me my freedom to love someone
else.
Your friend, Celine
I dressed and went to the mail box. When I returned, I fell into a deep and dreamless sleep.
Two days later, I received a note from Tomás. “Alicia’s fever broke. Can you meet me at three this
afternoon under the willow tree?”
470
At three, Tomás was waiting for me under the willow tree. It was a bright and sunny day, the
sails of the boats filled by a sharp southern wind. He was wearing a burgundy sweater and jeans,
revealing his sculpted legs.
He greeted me with an enigmatic smile that lit up my day.
“You were clairvoyant,” I laughed, “the other day you were talking about Secretary of State John
Foster Dulles and that’s exactly what Saint-Jean talked about in class yesterday — Dulles’ and President
Eisenhower’s fear of communism ruling his foreign policy.”
“While I have only praise, “Tomás said, “for President Truman’s and General Lucius Clay’s
defense of Berlin during the blockade, I can’t accept the dark side of the Truman Doctrine as it has
become under Eisenhower. While Eisenhower was an marvelous leader for the Allies in defeating Hitler,
his inflexible opposition to Marxism in any form, even when democratically sanctioned, has driven
Secretary of State John Foster Dulles to pursue alliances with dictators.”
“What dictators are you thinking of?”
“I’ll give you an example of Dulles installing a dictator. In a CIA organized coup, the U.S.
overthrew Prime Minister Mohammed Mosaddegh of Iran in 1953. You once mentioned that the
overthrow of governments by military force, especially one that was elected by the people, was not what
diplomat George Kennan was thinking of when he advocated the containment of Soviet power. The
government has succeeded in fooling the American people. But the people of Iran know the truth.”
“Why would Dulles overthrow Prime Minister Mosaddegh?”
“Fear of communism. Mosaddegh, leader of the nationalist’s movement the National Front of
Iran, was a reformer who’s brought a peaceful revolution to Iran by abolishing feudal land ownership
that has kept the people in bondage for centuries. Like the Spanish Popular Front had hoped to
accomplish in Spain, Mosaddegh’s land reform freed peasants from slave labor on the wealthy
landowner’s estates. Nominated as Prime Minister by the Iranian Parliament by an overwhelming
majority, Mosaddegh instituted unemployment compensation, constructed public baths and rural
housing. Factory owners were ordered to pay benefits to injured workers. After World War Two,
471
many Iranian politicians saw the Anglo Iranian Oil Company as a tool of British imperialism that was
exploiting the wealth of Iran. Mosaddegh’s fatal move was to attempt to negotiate with the British
petroleum corporation to gain a more favorable share of the petrol income to pay for his reforms and
improve the life of the poor. When the United Kingdom refused to give Iran a better deal, with the
approval of the Iranian Parliament, Mosaddegh nationalized the Anglo Iranian Oil Company in 1951.”
“This must have led to a violent reaction in the United Kingdom.”
“When governments nationalize foreign assets, it invariably results in virulent reprisals by the
Western imperial powers and oil companies, just as the U.S. reacted when Fidel Castro nationalized the
American owned estates in Cuba. The British oil consortium shut down their Iranian installations, took
their technicians out and levied a worldwide boycott of Iranian oil.
President Truman and Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadegh of Iran, 23 October 1951 – Author, U.S. Government, public domain, Wikimedia
472
Mohammad Mosaddegh, the leader of National Front and the democratic Prime Minister
of Iran, 20 July, 1954 – Author Mosaddegh Foundation, public domain, Wikimedia
“The British Navy began stopping ships carrying Iranian oil on the grounds that they were transporting
stolen property. Since the Western oil giants owned most of the tankers, the resulting blockade of Iran’s
petroleum exports shut down the Abadan refinery, the largest in the world. It devastated the Iranian economy.
The Anglo Iranian Oil Company and Aramco increased petroleum production in Iraq, Saudi Arabia, and Kuwait
to compensate for the loss of Iranian oil. Deprived of their trained workers and unable to export oil, Iran’s
economy was on the verge of collapse. Although he was up against the wall, Mosaddegh refused to give in to
the United Kingdom. Through means of his emergency powers approved by the Parliament, he declared a land
reform which established village councils to allow peasants a greater share of production, a major
transformation of Iran’s ancient feudal agricultural system.”
473
“I can see where this is headed. How did the United Kingdom react?”
“Prime Minister Clement Attlee,” Tomás replied, “preferred to force Iran to terms by means of a strict
economic boycott. This approach changed when elections brought more conservative leaders to power,
Winston Churchill in the UK and Dwight Eisenhower in the U.S. Although Eisenhower was skeptical at first
because a coup d’état would destabilize Iran, he was concerned that the communist Tudeh Party could take
power in Iran, He finally agreed with Secretary of State John Foster Dulles who in 1953 ordered the CIA run by
his brother, Allen Dulles, to make plans to overthrow Mosaddegh.”
“Did the Iranian Communist Party support Mosaddegh?”
“That was the irony,” Tomás said. “The Communist Party opposed Mosaddegh, claiming that he was
just another face of the corrupt monarchy of Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. British intelligence, the CIA, and the
British Petroleum company bribed Iranian politicians, clergy, and military officers and brought paid agitators
into Tehran in buses to stage protests to destabilize Mosaddegh, killing several hundred in the streets.
Shaban Jafari led fighting in the street of Tehran during the
1953 Iranian coup against the popular Prime Minister
Mohammad Mossadegh - Unknown author, public domain,
Wikimedia. The CIA intelligence agency paid Jafar to create
street disturbances to bring Shah to power.
474
Document of CIA directed campaign to Install Pro-Western Government in
Iran, August 1953 – Author, U.S. Government, public domain, Wikimedia
Iranian Foreign Minister Dr. Hossein Fatemi, right, with Mohammad Mosaddegh at the
United Nations Security Council, 1952 – Unknown author, public domain, Wikimedia.
475
Pro-Rezi Pahlavi demonstrators were paid by Iranian CIA agents to promote turmoil and
riot in Tehran, 1953 – Unknown author, public domain, The Guardian, Wikimedia
Pro-Mosaddegh protests in Tehran during the 1953 Iranian coup d’état, 16 August
1953 – Author, Iranian media, The Guardian, public domain, Wikimedia
476Fazlollah Zahedi, general and minister of the interior was
supported by the British M16 and U.S. CIA to stage a 1953
coup to overthrow democratically elected Prime Minister
Mohammed Mosssadegh – Author, Iranian media, public
domain, Wikimedia
Deposed Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh in court, 8
November, 1953 – Unknown author, public domain, Wikimedia
477Dr. Hossein Fatemi, Iranian Foreign Minister, during the 1953 CIA coup d’état that overthrew the constitutional government of
Prime Minister Mosaddegh – Unknown author, public domain, Wikimedia. An Iranian scholar, journalist, leading politician, and
close associate of Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh, Fatemi was appointed minister of foreign affairs at the age of 33, the
youngest in Iranian history. After receiving a doctorate law degree in France, 1948, Fatemi returned to Iran and launched the
daily Bākhtar, the organ of the Iranian National Front, Mosaddegh’s democratic nationalist movement. Fatemi was credited in
Mossaddeg’s memoir for proposing the nationalization of Iranian oil and gas holdings. During the 1953 CIA initiated coup d’état
that overthrew the constitutional government of Mosaddegh, the office of Fatemi’s newspaper was burnt down by mobs incited
by an Iranian CIA agent. After the coup succeeded in overthrowing Mossadegh, Fatemi was arrested and tortured, convicted by
a military court of “treason against the Shah” and on 10 November 1954, executed by firing squad.
Mohammed Mossadegh under house arrest in Ahmadabad,
Iran – Unknown author, public domain, Wikimedia
478“The military arrested Mosaddegh and he was convicted of treason by the Shah’s military court. A
general was made prime minister and Pahlavi assumed dictatorial powers banning Mossaddegh’s National
Front and the Tudeh Party. The CIA sent an army colonel to aid the military governor of Tehran in creating an
intelligence organization that would use all possible means, including torture and execution to hunt down
dissidents.”
“You’re talking about SAVAK, the Shah’s secret police. Pahlavi’s SAVAK became the terror of Iran.”
“SAVAK had virtually unlimited powers,” Tomás said. “After discovering a Tudeh communist network
within the military, SAVAK executed the leaders and destroyed most of the party membership. Not only did
the SAVAK agents spy upon Iranians, it also watched over Iranians abroad especially students studying in the
West. In the infamous Evin Prison, SAVAK tortured thousands of political prisoners using electric shock,
solitary confinement, sleep deprivation under bright lights, burning flesh with cigarettes, dripping acid in
nostrils, electrical shocks with cattle prods in the rectum, extracting teeth and finger nails, the bastinado, the
whipping and burning bare feet, terrifying women with snakes, tying weights to the testicles and staging mock
executions.”
Nematollah Nassiri, commander of the Iranian Imperial Guards of the Pahlavi dynasty and director of SAVAK, 16 August 1953, Unknown author,
The Guardian, public domain, Wikimedia. A personal friend of the Shah, Nassiri supported the 1953 coup d’état that removed Prime Minister
Mosaddegh from power in 1953. During the Iranian Revolution of 1979, Nassiri, a former director of the Shah’s brutal SAVAK secret police, was
tried by the Revolutionary Tribunal, charged with treason, torture, massacre of people, and sentenced to death.
479“It is no wonder that there is so much hatred toward the Pahlavi regime.”
“The Iranian people had seen foreign aggression before,” Tomás replied. “Iran had endured an invasion
of foreign powers during World War II.”
“An invasion?”
“Russia was being crushed by the German onslaught of Barbarossa in the summer of 1941. Stalin
desperately need armaments and supplies from the West. Like World War I, the Allies needed a strong Eastern
Front to keep the Germans tied up, relieving intense pressure on the United Kingdom in the west. The Brits
feared that the giant Abadan Refinery owned by the British controlled Anglo-Iranian Oil Company producing
eight million tons of oil would fall into German hands. Relations between Britain and Iran had been strained
for ten years since Reza Shah cancelled the concession that gave the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company the exclusive
right to sell Iranian oil.
“Because the Baltic shipping route was nearly impossible in the dead of winter, Stalin saw the Trans-
Iranian Railway as the best all-weather route to import military armaments from the allies. With the urgent need
to get armaments shipped, Britain and the Soviet Union put pressure on Iran to allow the Allies to use their
territory for military and logistical shipments to the USSR through Iran to Soviet Azerbaijan. The heavy
pressure from foreign governments ignited anti-British rallies in Tehran and Reza Shah refused to join the
Allies against the Germans.”
“The Shah wouldn’t budge and that’s what set off the invasion?”
“Britain and the USSR didn’t attempt to negotiate the issue. They invaded in a surprise attack, leaving
the unprepared Iranians no time to mount a defense. The British fleet attacked from the Persian Gulf, seizing the
strategic prize of the Abadan refinery. The Indian Infantry division attacked from Iraq in Central Iran. The
Soviets attacked from Soviet Azerbaijan into Iranian Azerbaijan with 1,000 tanks and motorized infantry. Then
a third invasion came from the Soviet Caspian Sea Navy. Overwhelmed on all fronts, Reza Shah sent a telegram
to President Roosevelt pleading with him to stop the invasion. As the U.S. was still neutral and not yet allied
with Britain or the USSR, the president had no authority to stop the attack, but declared that the territorial
integrity of Iran should be respected. A few days later, a fourth front opened when the Soviet Army invaded
northeastern Iran from Soviet Turkmenistan.”
“While Hitler was clobbering Britain and the Soviets, the Allies were clobbering the Iranians.”
480Soviet army crossing into Iran, 25 August 1941 – Unknown author, public domain, Wikimedia
Soviet tank men of the 6th Armored Division in the streets of Tabriz,
27 August 1941 – Unknown author, public domain, Wikimedia
481Soviet and British soldiers rendezvous near Qazvin, Iran – Unknown author, public domain, Wikimedia
British soldiers inspecting a tank of the Soviet occupation forces after rendezvousing
in Iran, 31 August 1941 – Unknown author, public domain, Wikimedia
482British Indian troops guarding the largest refinery in the world, Abadan Refinery, Iran, 4 September 1941 – Author, Capt. G. Keating, United
Kingdom Army, Imperial War Museum, public domain, Wikimedia. Prime Minister Mosaddegh’s nationalization of the Abadan Refinery led to
Britain encouraging President Eisenhower and Secretary of State John Foster Dulles and the CIA to stage a coup d’état to replace
democratically elected head of state Mosaddegh, with the autocratic Reza Pahlavi on the throne of Iran.
483British supply convoy protected by Soviet BA-10 armored vehicle, September 1941 – Unknown author, public domain, Wikimedi
Formation of B-25 Mitchell bombers, 1942 – Author, Australian War Memorial, public domain, Wikimedia
484“It was like Hitler’s blizkreig in France. Iran was hit with 200,000 mobile troops, state of the art aircraft,
tanks, and artillery. The Iranian army was in total chaos with the Allies in complete control of the skies,
bombing Tehran at will, the soldiers fleeing for their lives. Except for the Shah and Crown Prince, the royal
family fled to Isfahan. Faced with defeat on all sides, after four days, the Shah ordered his army to cease fire
and surrendered to the Allied command. During the cease fire negotiations, Britain demanded that the Shah
hand over all German nationals. Fearing they would be put to death, the Shah evacuated the Germans through
the Turkish border.”
“So,” I said, “it took a massive invasion to depose the Shah and put the young Crown Prince on the
throne of Iran, a puppet under the control of the British oil consortium. While it helped defeat the Nazis, it also
defeated the Iranian people. What trade offs there are in war! Then, twelve years after the invasion, the CIA
coup d’état against Prime Minister Mosaddegh establishes Reza Phalavi as absolute ruler of Iran. What a
Byzantine history Iran has had in the 20th century.”
“You guessed correctly. Crown Prince Mohammad Reza Pahlavi took the oath to become the Shah of
Iran. His father was arrested and sent into exile as a British prisoner in South Africa where he died heartbroken
three years later. Pahlavi signed the Tripartite Treaty Alliance with Britain and the USSR, and in 1943, Iran
declared war on Germany, qualified for membership in the United Nations, and during the Tehran Conference,
Churchill, Roosevelt, and Stalin confirmed their commitment to Iranian independence.”
“At what a cost to the Iranians.”
“It was brutal because the desperate Soviets appropriated most of the harvest and thousands of foreign
troops ate up what was left, leaving the Iranian people to starve with bread riots in Tehran, 400 percent
inflation, and deaths from famine. Joseph Stalin took advantage of the occupation to undermine Iranian
sovereignty by sending apparatchiks into Iranian Azerbaijan and Iranian Kurdistan to establish communist
enclaves, including founding the communist Tudeh Party of Iran, a Soviet destabilization policy that a decade
later aroused John Foster Dulles’ fear of a communist take over in Iran.”
“But the armaments got through the Persian Corridor.”
“By 1943, 30,000 American troops serviced the Persian Corridor and one-third of all Lend-Lease
supplies — 17 million tons transported by train and trucks over mostly dirt roads across the deserts into Soviet-
Azerbaijan. A lot of Studebaker trucks and B-25 Mitchell bombers were sent through Iran — a big help at the
Battle of Stalingrad.”
485Map showing U.S. Lend-Lease shipments to USSR during World War
II by route – U.S. State Department, public domain, Wikimedia
An American locomotive transporting military supplies bound for the USSR through
the Persian Corridor, 1943 – Author, U.S. Government, public domain, Wikimedia
486U.S. planes waiting to be picked up from Abadan Field, Iran, 1942 – Author, U.S. Air Force, public domain, Wikimedia
North American B-25 Mitchell bomber production, Kansas City, 1942 – Author, Alfred T. Palmer,
U.S. War Office of Information, public domain, U.S. Library of Congress, Wikimedia
487Polish Army soldiers entering Warsaw in a Willys jeep furnished by the U.S. Lend-Lease program. In the background, the Holy
Cross Church destroyed by the Nazi in retribution for the Warsaw Uprising – Unknown author, public domain, Wikimedia
Crowds greet the Soviet ambassador at a British tank factory delivering a Valentine tank –
Unknown author, British Ministry of Information, U.S. Library of Congress, Wikimedia
488An Iranian assembly plant for American Curtiss P-40 fighters to be transported through the Persian Corridor for
the Russian Army, March 1943 – Author, Nick Parrino, public domain, U.S. Library of Congress, Wikimedia
American and British Army train crewmen in route on the Persian Corridor, carrying Lend-Lease supplies
to the USSR, 1943 – Author, Nick Parrino, public domain, U.S. Library of Congress, Wikimedia
489After the Anglo-Soviet invasion of Iran elevated a more compliant Shah on the throne, American and British railroad crews transported
Lend-Lease military supplies to Stalin’s army, March 1943 – Author, Nick Parrino, public domain, U.S. Library of Congress, Wikimedia
490A United States Army truck convoy carrying military supplies for the USSR on the Persian Corridor, May 1943 – Author,
Nick Parrino, public domain, U.S. Library of Congress, Wikimedia. Donkeys did not always yield the right away.
Lend-Lease supply train traveling the Persian Corridor through the mountains of Iran, March 1943 – Author, Nick
Parrino, Office of War Information, public domain, National Museum of the U.S. Navy, Wikimedia
491“I can imagine,” I said, “how bitter were the memories of the Iranians after the misfortunes of 1941 and
1953. Then, they had to suffer the terror of Pahlavi’s SAVAK secret police. SAVAK was as twisted in the art
of torture as what you’ve described in the Grand Inquisitor’s terror in Queen Isabella’s Spain. There was not
much reason for the Iranians to love America. ”
“And the terror,” Tomás said, “was just as perverse as 500 years ago. The interrogators humiliated their
prisoners by stripping them naked, urinating on them, and raping them. The violations of human rights were as
terrible as any secret police anywhere, including the Stasi secret police in East Germany.”
“In the moment of their sadistic pleasures,” I said, “they don’t understand how counterproductive torture
is in the long run. Without realizing the hatred that it would instill in the Iranians, Eisenhower and the Dulles
brothers overthrew an anti-colonialist prime minister and ordained the Shah as a puppet king.”
Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi with his consort Farah Pahlavi and crown prince after the
coronation, 1967 – Unknown author, Iranian Government, public domain, Wikimedia
492President Eisenhower with the Shah of Iran, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi,
Tehran, Iran, 1959 – Unknown author, public domain, Wikimedia
To be true to one’s own freedom is, in essence to honor
and respect the freedom of all others.
— Dwight D. Eisenhower
493“Out of fear, the United States put a dictator on the throne,” Tomás said, “and through the instrument
of SAVAK, the dictator rules by fear. The wealthy conservatives who’ve always controlled Iran, now have
Mohammed Reza Pahlavi firmly in power and a consortium of British and American oil producers control
Iran’s oil. This is colonialism in the 20th century. In our time, there’s no excuse for Europe and the U.S. to
continue exploiting the wealth of Asian and African colonies.
“Hasn’t the U.S. also overthrown governments in South America?”
“A good example is Guatemala,” Tomás said, “Since the 1930s, Guatemala had been ruled by the
brutally repressive dictator General Jorge Ubico. In return for the backing of the U.S., Ubico granted military
bases to the U.S. and gave hundreds of thousands of acres of fertile land to the United Fruit Company. Under
Ubico’s rule, the government used forced indigenous labor for construction of roads and railroads, froze
wages at poverty levels, and passed a law allowing property owners to execute workers for disciplinary
reasons.
Jorge Ubico, President of Guatemala, 1931 – 1944 – Author, Government of Guatemala, public domain, Wikimedia. An admirer
of Napoleon Bonaparte, Ubico was one of the harshest dictators of Central America, maintaining a network of spies and agents
throughout Guatemala, militarizing schools and government posts, allowing the U.S. to establish military bases, granting the
United Fruit Company tax exemptions and 490,000 acres of public land, and the port facilities at Puerto Barrios. The killing of
María Chinchilla Recinos by Ubico’s cavalry during a peaceful demonstration of school teachers, sparked a mass national protest
and general strike that forced Ubico’s resignation, 1 July, 1944.
494Profesora María Chinchilla Recinos – Unknown author, Fotos antiguas de Guatemala, public domain, Wikimedia. During a
peaceful demonstration at the Church of St. Frances, 25 June 1944, calling for an increase of salaries, greater democracy, and the
resignation of the dictator, Guatemalan President Jorge Ubico responded by ordering the cavalry to suppress the protest,
resulting in María Chinchilla’s death and sparking a popular revolt that led to Ubico’s resignation five days later. The Guatemalan
teachers’ association declared 25 June to be celebrated each year as the Dia del Maestro in memory of María Chinchilla Recinos,
martyr and national heroine of Guatemala.
“In 1944, the repressive policies of Ubico resulted in middle-class intellectuals and junior army officers
overthrowing Ubico. A few months after the October Revolution, Guatemala held its first democratic elections.
Juan José Arévalo, a professor of philosophy, won the election in a landslide and immediately introduced
reforms to increase spending on education and establish a minimum wage that ended the labor exploitation by
the United Fruit Company. The democratic rule of the next ten years from the overthrow of Ubico until the
counter-revolution of 1954 became known as Ten Years of Spring, the only years that Guatemala was able to
have a democratic government.”
“Wasn’t it the case,” I said, “that a small percentage of the people owned nearly all of the land?”
495Juan José Arévalo, the first democratically elected president of Guatemala – Author, Government of Guatemala, Ministry of
Defense, Wikimedia. Arévalo, a professor of philosophy, was elected president in 1945 after a popular revolt against the U.S.
supported dictator Jorge Ubico. An exponent of the philosophy of “Spiritual Socialism,” Arévalo survived 25 coup attempts of the
Guatemala military and enacted major social reforms, increased the minimum wage, expanded education, and drafted a new
Guatemalan constitution that granted civil rights and liberties that heretofore had never been experienced by the Guatemalan
people. Under the program of Arevalismo, large undeveloped agricultural estates owned by foreign citizens were redistributed to
peasants, mandating that landowners provide decent housing for the campesino workers. Arévalo‘s administration constructed
new schools and hospitals for the peasants, earning the reputation in the United States of being a communist, although Arevalo
hadn’t allowed the legalization of the Communist Party and had exiled communists activists. Responding to the accusations of
being a communist, Arévalo said in an address to the U.S. Congress said, “I fear the West has won the battle, but in its blind
attacks on social welfare will lose the war to fascism.”
“Two percent of the people,” Tomás replied, “owned 70 percent of the land, much of which was not
even under cultivation while 98 percent of the population were landless laborers. The next democratically
elected President Jacobo Árbenz began in the early ‘50s to expropriate large tracts of un-farmed private land to
distribute to the landless peasants. Like Mosaddegh in Iran, Árbenz intended to end the feudalism which had
repressed the Guatemalan people for centuries since the Spanish conquest. Half a million destitute Guatemalan
farmers, many of them indigenous Mayans, were able for the first time to possess their own land. Árbenz
expropriated from the United Fruit Company hundreds of thousands of acres of untilled farm land reimbursing
them by the tax declaration value of unused land.
496Jacobo Árbenz and his wife María Cristina Vilanova, 1944 – Unknown author, public domain, Wikimedia. The daughter of a
wealthy San Salvadoran landowner and a Guatemalan mother, a feminist influenced by the social-economic views of Marx,
María Cristina Vilanova had a strong influence on the political policies of her husband, encouraging him to champion the rights of
the indigenous people. Jacobo Árbenz, Guatemalan Minister of Defense and the second democratically elected President of
Guatemala from 1951 to 1954, continued the social reforms of his predecessor President Arévalo, expanding the right to vote,
the right of workers to organize, freedom of speech, and the right to public debate. Árbenz‘s policy of agrarian reform under
Decree 900, passed by the Guatemalan Congress, June 17, 1952, compensated large land owners for the expropriation of
uncultivated large land holdings that were redistributed to a half-million poverty stricken campesino workers, primarily
indigenous Indians whose land had been lost during centuries of Spanish colonialism. After the land reform Decree 900 was
passed, the United Fruit Company, which had 40% of its land expropriated by Árbenz’s land reform, worked to convince the
Truman and Eisenhower administrations that Árbenz planned to align Guatemala with the Soviet Bloc. Consequently, during the
Truman administration, a covert operation, Operation FORTUNE, to overthrow Árbenz was developed by the CIA, but a whistle-
blower discovered the secret operation and informed the previously unaware Secretary of State Dean Acheson. The covert plan
called for no direct U.S. military assistance, but rather the financing and supplying of exiled Guatemalan army officer Carlos
Castillo Armas to lead the coup, which called for assassinations and arrests of scores of supporters of Árbenz, a list prepared by
exiled Guatemalan military officers. Fearing that the coup would damage the image of the United States’ professed policy of
non-intervention — the invasion of a country that was a member of the Organization of American States — Dean Acheson
convinced Truman to abandon a coup that would result in a huge setback to U.S. foreign policy.
Upon the election of President Dwight D. Eisenhower, the former general was more inclined to eliminate foreign governments
that he believed were influenced by communism. Fearing that the success of Arbenz’s reforms would inspire similar movements
in Latin America, Eisenhower authorized a new covert operation PBSUCCESS that trained and funded an invasion force led by
exiled Carlos Castillo Armas. Similar to the Iranian coup against Mosaddegh, the CIA employed a sophisticated campaign of
psychological warfare and violence that succeeded in overthrowing the democratically elected President Árbenz, ending the
497reforms of the ten-year-long Guatemalan Spring. The military dictatorship established by U.S. puppet Carlos Castill Armas
immediately initiated a program of violence against protesting workers on the plantations of the United Fruit Company. Among
many conflicts of interests, Eisenhower’s Secretary of State John Foster Dulles was a member of the law firm, Sullivan and
Cromwell that had represented the United Fruit Company and his brother, CIA deputy director Allen Dulles who was on the United
Fruit board of directors. The State Department’s director of International Security was a former CEO of the company, and CIA
director and undersecretary of State Bedell Smith later became a director of the United Fruit Company, which today is Chiquita
Brands International.
The overthrow of Árbenz by the United States initiated a forty-year-long cycle of military suppression and terror during which
Guatemala was ruled by U.S. supported military dictators leading to the Guatemalan Civil War, 1960 – 1996, in which 200,000
were killed. During 1966-69, U.S. Green Berets providing training and support for Guatemalan counterinsurgency forces and U.S.
military advisors, similar to the U.S. operatives in El Salvador, reportedly helped to form death squads and counterinsurgency
operations resulting in thousands of assassinations. During the years of the Central American insurgencies against military
dictators, not only were American agents present during torture sessions, the U.S. government outsourced covert operations to
Israel and Argentina, the Israeli press reporting that several hundred Israeli advisors helped the U.S. to train Guatemalan
counterinsurgency forces, prompting the Human Rights Watch in 1984 to criticize President Ronald Reagan for America’s violation
of human rights in Central America — massacres of students, intellectuals, social activists, trade unionists, and journalists,
including aerial bombardment and extermination of entire villages — genocide against indigenous Mayan people.
SS Abangarez, a United Fruit ship, 1945 – Author, Robert G. Tippins, U.S. Navy, U.S. Naval Historical Center, public domain, Wikimedia
“Like Mosaddegh’s expropriation of oil fields,” Tomás said “had enraged the British oil companies, the
expropriation of land in Guatemala enraged the United Fruit Company. The American company was a giant,
owning more than 3 million acres with 70,000 cattle, 1,500 miles of railways, and a fleet of 70 ships operating
on a budget greater than most Central American countries. The United Fruit Company began a public relations
campaign to convince President Eisenhower and Secretary of State John Foster Dulles that Guatemala was
going Communist.
498Tierra y Libertad, Reforma Agraria de Guatemala, government poster announcing President Jacobo Árbenz’s agrarian program
of land redistribution to the indigenous peasants, 1952 – Author, Government of Guatemala, public domain, Wikimedia
499CIA memorandum, May 1975, documenting the role of the agency in overthrowing the democratically elected Guatemalan
government of President Jacobo Árbenz in June 1954 – U.S. Central Intelligence Agency, public domain, Wikimedia
500Indonesian President Sukarno with U.S. Secretary of State John Foster Dulles and Richard Nixon, 1956 – Unknown author,
United States Information Service, public domain, Wikimedia. Sukarno led Indonesians in resisting Dutch efforts to re-colo-
nize Indonesia after the defeat of the Japanese occupiers in WWII, becoming the first president of Indonesia, serving from
1945 to 1967. Sukarno was able to unify a country of 600 native ethnic groups, the largest being Javanese, Sundanese, Ma-
lay, Batak, Madurese, Minangkabua, and Buginese, inhabiting seventeen thousand islands, Java, Sumatra, Sulawesi, and
parts of Borneo and New Guinea. Sukarno was a dedicated Indonesian nationalist, but was dependent on the support of the
Communist party because it supported his political programs. Fearing that the popularity of the PKI party would lead to a
communist Indonesia, President Eisenhower ordered the CIA in 1957 to overthrow the Sukarno government, a coup which
failed, one of the greatest failures in the history of the CIA. Determined to maintain independence from the great powers,
Sukarno joined the Non-Aligned Movement, NAM, in 1961 together with Yugolsavia’s President Josip Broz Tito, India’s
Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, Egypt’s President Gamal Abdel Nasser, and Ghana’s President Kwame Nkrumah, an orga-
nization dedicated to provide unity and influence for nations who remained unaligned with the Cold War adversaries of the
Soviet Union and the United States. The five principles of the Non-Aligned Movement were mutual respect for territorial in-
tegrity and sovereignty, mutual non-aggressions, non-interference in domestic affairs, equality and mutual benefit, and
peaceful co-existence. With a population of 270 million, Indonesia is the world’s fourth-most populous country. Metropolitan
Jakarta is the second-most populous city after Tokyo with a population of 36 million.
501Suharto taking the presidential oath of office, 27 March, 1968 – Author,
Government of Republic of Indonesia, public domain, Wikimedia.
Massacre of Chinese Indonesians, bodies thrown into rivers and canals, Batavia, Indonesia, 1740 – Etching by Jakob van der
Schley after the original by Adolf van der Laan, Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, public domain, Wikimedia. The slaughter of
Indonesians of Chinese descent have been carried out by the government since the time of the Dutch East India Company
when soldiers killed 10,000 Chinese and during the Indonesian National Revolution against Dutch rule were slaughtered again
in 1946. While Suharto was in charge of the military, thousands of Chinese Indonesians were massacred in Makassar, Medan
and Lombok. In 1965-1966, the army and religious groups purged the country of anyone suspected of belonging to the
communist party, a repression similar to Syngman Rhee’s massacre of leftists in Korea in the 50’s, a web of violence which
killed many Chinese who were not communists at all. The purge spread throughout Indonesia, leaving a half-million dead. To
force the Chinese to assimilate, the Suharto government passed laws allowing only one Chinese publication to be controlled
by the military, forbidding the display of Chinese characters, and forcing the Chinese to take-up Indonesian names, a cultural
genocide that duplicated the Japanese genocide against the Koreans in the early 20th Century.
502Indonesian President Suharto meeting with U.S. President Gerald Ford and Secretary of State Henry Kissing-
er, 6 December 1975, Jakarta, Indonesia – Author, David Hume Kennerly, Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library,
public domain, Wikimedia. In 1965, by using a similar modus operandi of Adolf Hitler, Major General Suharto
accused the communists of being responsible for an attempted coup and mounted a campaign to purge Indo-
nesia of the Communist PKI party. Suharto’s forces imprisoned 1.5 million and executed over a half million in
a bloodbath, eventually seizing power from President Sukarno and establishing a dictatorship that endured 31
years until he was forced to resign during a financial crisis in 1998. The German anti-corruption group Trans-
parency International lists Suharto as the most corrupt leader in modern times, alleged to have embezzled be-
tween 20 to 35 billion dollars during his regime.
The 1975 meeting of President Ford and Henry Kissinger with Suharto was held one day before the Indone-
sian army equipped by U.S. supplied weaponry invaded East Timor under the pretext of anti-communism to
overthrow the popular Fretilin leftist regime. CIA documents later revealed that the U.S. gave Suharto the
green light to take East Timor which was on the brink of being accepted as a member of the United Nations.
The brutal invasion of the Indonesian army resulted in the slaughter of over 100,000 East Timor soldiers and
civilians. East Timor did not gain its independence from Indonesian rule until 2002. After the fall of the South
Vietnamese government in 1975, U.S. support for the Indonesian dictator Suharto was motivated by the need
for anti-communist allies in SE Asia and to open Indonesia to foreign investment.
503President Dwight Eisenhower and Secretary of State John Foster Dulles meeting at the
White House – U.S. Government, public domain, U.S. National Archives, Wikimedia
“Encouraged by the success of the Iranian coup d’état which deposed Mosaddegh, John Foster Dulles and
his brother Allen Dulles directed the CIA to mount a paramilitary invasion of Guatemala which overthrew
democratically elected President Árbenz and installed a military government. The new dictator, Carlos Castillo
Armas, resurrected the same repressive violence against the peasantry that they’d endured during their history of
dictatorships. Through the grace of the United States power, Guatemala returned to the colonial policies of the 19th
century. The United Fruit Company won and the peasants lost.”
“The ownership of land in Guatemala,” I said, “was similar to Cuba before Castro’s revolution.”
“It was exactly the same,” Tomás said, slapping his palm on the table. “But the image of the United States
throughout the world, took a blow when the international press attacked the CIA’s coup d’état. While in the
states, TIME magazine made John Foster Dulles Man of the Year, Le Monde and The Times in London called the
American intervention, the new economic colonialism. United Nations Secretary General Dag Hammarskjöld said
the invasion was a violation of the human-rights rules of the UN Charter. Even the pro-U.S. press of West
Germany condemned the Guatemalan coup d’etat. From a long-range point of view, Eisenhower’s backing of the
504invasion was a stupid thing to do for the coup was a public relations disaster for America. It created great
bitterness towards the United States and became a symbol of resistance throughout Latin America. I believe the
overthrow of democratic governments, whether by the Americans or Soviets, will come back to haunt the big
powers. For the overthrow of the governments of Guatemala and Iran, I’m sure that one day the United States
will pay a bitter price.”
U.S. President John F. Kennedy, left, U.S. Army commander Charles Murray, center, and Brazilian President
Joao Goulart, right, review Brazilian troops, 3 April 1962 – Author, U.S. Army, public domain, Wikimedia
The involvement of the U.S. government in April 1964 was critical to the success of the Brazilian military coup
d’état against the administration of President João Goulart. After Goulart won the presidential referendum in
1963, he sought to establish land reform and to nationalize large companies in certain sectors. After Castro’s
communist revolution succeeded in 1959, the Bay of Pigs invasion failed to overthrow Castro, and Soviet Russia
based missiles in Cuba, the Kennedy administration attempted to persuade Goulart to remove leftists in his
government and modify his reforms. When Goulart refused to endorse the U.S. anti-Castro policies in the
Organization of American States’ meeting in Punta del Este, Uruguay in 1962, Kennedy’s administration
increasing turned against the Goulart administration. A key turning point was when Attorney General Robert
Kennedy’s met with Goulart in December 1962 and failed to pull Goulart toward the center or convince him to
withdraw his nationalization reforms or remove anti-U.S. and leftist politicians from his cabinet. President
Kennedy spoke of respecting Brazilian sovereignty publicly, but privately began to consider ways to remove the
Goulart presidency.
505Brazilian military leader Castelo Branco, at left with U.S. Ambassador Lincoln Gordon, at
center, 1965 – Unknown author, public domain, Brazilian National Archives, Wikimedia
The U.S. Ambassador to Brazil Lincoln Gordon advised Kennedy to “strengthen the spine of the military.’
Ambassador Gordon said that the U.S. should discreetly advise the Brazilian military that in certain
circumstances, the U.S. was not opposed to the removal of the Goulart administration. After John F. Kennedy
was assassinated, November 22, 1963, President Johnson inherited the contingency plans of the Kennedy
administration. American internal politics influenced Johnson’s support of the Brazilian coup d’état. After
Panamanians protested the U.S. military base in the Canal Zone, the Republican opposition criticized Johnson for
being weak in his response. When presidential candidate Barry Goldwater charged that Johnson was not a strong
enough “Cold Warrior,” Johnson was convinced that to win the election, he had to be tough on Goulart’s leftist
reforms. Kennedy had chosen Johnson as his running mate in the 1960 presidential campaign due to the
movement to the right in the 1950s and early 1960s as Roosevelt’s New Deal progressivism was replaced by
growing militarism, anti-Communism, and the entrenched power of Southern senators who headed many of the
Senate committees that formed a “Southern Cage” around U.S. policy. The loss of Cuba and the Bay of Pigs
failure reinforced the desire to stop all leftist and communist movements in Latin America. Fearing that an
unsuccessful coup attempt would ensure Barry Goldwater’s election, the die was cast. Ambassador Gordon
coordinated the coup from his office in Brasília, sending cables to Washington, saying that Brazil was becoming
“The China of the 1960s,” urging the U.S. to support Army Chief of Staff Humberto Castelo Branco in
overthrowing President Goulart.
506RF 8A and F-8C Crusaders overfly USS Forrestal, in 1964, the largest aircraft carrier ever
built, and the first designed for jet planes. Author, U.S. Navy, public domain, Wikimedia
In April, 1964, the aircraft carrier USS Forrestal arrived off Santos, Brazil, accompanied by two guided missile
destroyers, four destroyers, two destroyer escorts, and fueling tankers. Assured of American support, the Brazilian
2nd Army marched toward Vale do Paraiba, between Sao Paul and Rio de Janeiro and the 1st Army, previously loyal
to Goulart, surrendered. Realizing that he lacked political support in the capitol city of Brasilia, Goulart gathered his
wife and children and fled to exile in Uruguay. Washington immediately recognized the new Brazilian military
dictatorship, hailing the coup as a great democratic force that had saved Brazil from international communism. By
coincidence, 26 March 1964, five days before the 1 April coup in Brazil, the Civil Rights Act was voted on in the U.S.
Senate. In the same week that African Americans were having their citizenship rights established by the American
government, the Brazilian were losing theirs.
The Brazilian military government, known as the Fifth Brazilian Republic ruled Brazil from 1 April 1964 to 15 March
1985. Supported by the Catholic Church, anti-communists in the Brazilian middle and upper classes, and supported
strongly by the United States Embassy in Brasilia, the dictatorship lasted for twenty years.
507João Goulart, President of Brazil, 1961. Deposed by Marshal Humberto de Alencar Castelo Branco, President and
the military dictatorship of 1964 – Source, Galeria de military dictator of Brazil, 1964 – 1967 – Source, Galeria de
Presidentes, public domain, Wikimedia Presidentes, public domain, Wikimedia
After the overthrow of João Goulart, the military junta led by Marshal Humberto de Alencar Castelo Branco
adopted a constitution that suppressed freedom of speech and political opposition and formed a repressive
regime that championed nationalism, rapid economic growth, and hard line anti-communism. Within a few years
of U.S. financial concessions for the military regime, half of the 30 largest privately owned companies were
foreign-owned. At the culmination of its popularity in the 1970s, it censored all media, tortured, exiled, and killed
dissidents. The Brazilian military dictatorship became a model for other military regimes throughout Latin
America, promulgating the “Doctrine of National Security” that condoned the military seizing power in a time of
crisis in the interest of national security. It was only in 2014, thirty years after the military regime under General
João Figueiredo collapsed in 1979 under a crumbling economy, chronic inflation, and massive anti-government
demonstrations that the Brazilian military officially recognized the human rights violations – the torture and killing
of political dissidents during the twenty years of dictatorship. In 2018, the U.S. government issued a
memorandum, dated April 1974, by Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, verifying that the Brazilian military
leadership was fully aware of the killing of dissidents. While 8,000 died during the genocide against indigenous
people and tens of thousands were tortured, human rights activist believed it is much higher. The Brazilian coup
was the beginning of a surge of similar U.S. efforts to counter leftist reforms throughout Latin America. In 1976,
the Argentine and Brazilian dictatorship signed an agreement to hunt down and eliminate dissidents who
attempted to flee from one country to another to escape persecution.
508Students march against the Brazilian military dictatorship, 9 September,
1966 – Source, Brazilian National Archives, public domain, Wikimedia
Brazilian M41 Walker Bulldog tanks occupy Presidente Vargas Avenue, Rio de Janeiro, during a time of popular resis-
tance to the repressive military dictatorship, April 1968 – Author, Correio da Manha, public domain, Wikimedia
509Commandos de Chasse, 4th Zouave regiment in the French-Algerian
War, 1960-1962 – Unknown author, public domain, Wikimedia
French General Paul Aussaresses who developed counter-revolutionary torture techniques during the Battle of
Algiers in 1954 – 1957 was appointed military attaché with the French diplomatic mission to the U.S. Interviewed
in Le Monde, forty years later, Aussaresses said, “Concerning the use of torture, it was tolerated if not recom-
mended. François Mitterrand, the Minister for Justice had, indeed, an emissary with Massu in Judge Jean Bérard
who covered for us and who had complete knowledge of what went on in the night.” In 2001, Aussaresses de-
clared, “My role in Algeria was a struggle against unbridled terrorism — blind attacks against the innocent. . . I
am a patriot. I take full responsibility for my actions. I do not seek to justify my actions but simply try to explain
that from the moment when a nation demands of its army to fight an enemy that terrorizes the population and
forces it into submission, it is impossible for the army not to resort to extreme means. . . In the interest of my
country I had clandestinely carried out operations unacceptable to the ordinary moral standards, had often cir-
cumvented the law: stolen, assassinated, vandalized, and terrorized. I had learned how to pick locks, kill without
leaving traces, lie, be indifferent to my suffering and to that of others, had forgotten and made others forget. All
for France.” – Martin Brass, “Torture to Prevent Terrorism? Interview with a French Master Torturer”, November 2001,
510General Jorge Rafael Videl taking the oath of office as President of Argentina, 29 March 1976 – Unknown author, public domain, Wikimedia
Aided by ten French-Algerian War veterans at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, Aussaresses instructed the U.S. 10th Spe-
cial Forces Group in counter-insurgency tactics, interrogation, and torture that during the Vietnam War led to the
CIA’s Phoenix Program that destroyed the Viet Cong via infiltration, interrogation, torture, and assassination. Mov-
ing to Brazil in 1973, Aussaresses instructed the Chilean officers being trained in Brazil and military officers of oth-
er South American juntas in the techniques of counter-insurrection warfare and torture, including the death flights
carried out by the Argentine military dictatorship – techniques that were carried out throughout the 1970s by the
military regimes in Brazil, Bolivia, Chile, Paraguay, and Argentina. The concentrated suppression of dissidents by
South American dictators under Operation Condor continued with American support throughout the 1970s and
1980s in an effort to eliminate socialists and communists. Although guerilla operations were never strong enough
to control territory or threaten national security, hundreds of thousands were imprisoned, including trade union
officials, peasant leaders, social workers, university students, teachers, intellectuals, suspected guerillas, priests
and nuns. Babies and children of imprisoned dissidents were taken from their mothers and given up for adoption
to families faithful to the regime. An estimated 60,000 were killed clandestinely, 30,000 in Argentina alone. 30,000
simply disappeared in Argentina, the “Los Desaparecidos”. Like the Nazi Gestapo strategy of “Night and Fog”,
people disappeared in the middle of the night, carried away to hundreds of secret concentration camps to be tor-
tured and killed. Under the Johnson, Nixon, Ford, Carter, and Reagan administrations, the Central Intelligence
Agency supplied military and technical aid to the military juntas who abducted, tortured, and killed with impunity in
Operation Condor. – Wikipedia, onlinelibrary.wiley.com.
511Military dictator of Brazil, President Emilio Garrastazu Medici with
President Richard Nixon, 1971. President of Brazil, 1969 – 1974 – Author
Byron E. Schumaker, U.S. National Archives, public domain, Wikimedia
Peruvian dictator Francisco Morales Bermúdez, coordinating
member of Operation Condor – Author, FMG, Biblioteca Militar
de Lima, public domain, Wikimedia
512President Salvador Allende, 28th president of Chile from 3 November 1970 until his death in the military coup
d’état of 11 September 1973. Allende was the first Marxist to be elected president in a Latin America democracy,
January 1972 – Unknown author, Brazilian National Archives, public domain, Wikimeda. Trained as a doctor at
the University of Chile, Allende became the Minister of Health in the Reformist Popular Front government and
became president of the Chilean Senate in 1966 where he introduced legislation that established the Chilean
National Health Service that guaranteed universal health care. The possibility that Allende could win the 1970
presidential election was considered a catastrophe by the Nixon administration. Determined to block the growth
of communism during the Cold War, President Nixon informed the CIA that Allende must be stopped,
authorizing $10 million to prevent Allende from coming to power. Even during Allende’s 1964 campaign for the
presidency, the CIA had spent several million to finance Allende’s opponent Eduardo Frei and frighten voters
away from Allende’s Popular Unity coalition, which led to the successful election of Frei. When the dreaded
disaster struck and Salvador Allende won the 1970 presidential election, fearing that Allende would make it a
socialist nation and the U.S. would lose all investments in Chile as they had in Cuba, President Richard Nixon
cut off all aid to Chile, exerted economic pressure on Chile, backed Allende’s conservative opponents in the
Chilean Congress, and instructed the CIA to develop plans for a coup to bring down Allende.
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